LIGHT BEYOND DARKNESS
By EDWYN BEVAN
AWAR between nations armed with modem scientific instruments of destruction would in any case entail a great mass of horror and suffering. The peculiar sadness of the present War is that it comes at the end of a period marked, as few periods have been, by aspirations and efforts to make a better world, by buoyant hopes and visions. They end in this! That is what makes the best part of mankind today bewildered and nonplussed. All through the distresses of the last War we heard the confident assurance expressed that if once the Hohenzollern domination could be overthrown, democracy would be safe, war could be banished by some new fellowship of the nations. The present indeed was dark and difficult, but on beyond the shadows we saw a realm of light, if we could only get there. And we seemed to get there, or get very nearly there. The Hohenzollern domination was overthrown ; Germany became a democratic republic ; a League of Nations, which, it was believed, would before long include all mankind, was established. What do we look forward to beyond the darkness and difficulty of today? When such hopes have proved illusive, how can we hope again?
• I do not know that it would be true to say that in the years which followed 1918 the young were more hopeful than the old. If the young men saw visions, many old men dreamed dreams. But certainly there were great waves of hope sweeping through the younger generation. In those whose hopes had no basis in religious faith they often took the form of believing that the " capitalist " order of society was breaking down and that it would soon be replaced by some sort of Communist Utopia. They pinned their faith on Russia. Today Russia is something of a disappointment. They were sure that the struggle in Spain would end in a victory for Socialist Republicanism over the allies of Fascism and Nazism ; some young Englishmen gave their lives in Spain to hasten that victory. It has proved a complete delusion: Spain today is quiet and friendly under Franco. Amongst that part of the young who held to the Christian faith—those, for instance, represented by the widespread Student Christian Movement—the hopes had a different complexion. Some indeed of these combined the Communist expectation with a peculiar understanding of Christianity ; there exists what is called "Christianity of the Left "; but even those who did not belong to this wing had their faces set ardently towards a Jerusalem on earth. They spoke of bringing international relations into accordance with, the mind of Christ. They worked with the League of Nations Union. Before 1933 they passed resolutions at their gather- ings in favour of general disarmament.
A hundred years ago Lamartine gave utterance to a feeling which may be that of many people today. It is his cry to the invisible Christ.
Deux mile ans sons passes, et l'homme attend encore: Al! remonte a ton Pere, ange de l'avenir. Et dis-lui que le soir a remplace l'aurore, Et que le don celeste est trop lent a %/emir.*
We believed that the dawn was near and lo, darkness has come instead—yes, that is it. What are we to do? I think that attempts to answer this question are generally confused because it is not made clear who are meant by "we." Some- times it means "we men," the whole human race. J. this sense the question may be answered by saying that, suppose all men and women, the world over, were governed in their thoughts and lives by the spirit of Christ, not only war, but the greater part of our ills, too, would disappear. But if you urge this truth, you are really uttering a truism which does not help our perplexities, because there is no ground for anticipating that in any near future all men and women will be governed by the spirit of Christ.
Or " we " may mean the right-minded part of mankind, as distinguished from the wrong-minded. Then the ques- tion means: Recognising that the evil will is likely to operate in a greater or smaller proportion of mankind for any time we can foresee, how are we, the right-minded, to act in regard to it? One answer is that of the pacifist: On no account resist it by the use of force ; that which subdues the evil will is the spirit of Jesus, is love. There is a real truth in this answer. Sometimes the evil will is subdued by love, and, when that happens, it is a much better victory than the victory of superior strength, the victory won by killing. But it is false if it means that the evil will always melts away before love. When Caiaphas and Pilate en- countered the spirit of Jesus in Jesus Himself, their hearts were not changed. After the spirit of Jesus had acted upon Judas for three years in close companionship his heart was the heart of a traitor. It took three hundred years for the spirit of Jesus in the Christian Church to subdue the hostile will of the Roman State. Thus the pacifist leaves us with the problem of the evil will there for a long time to come, active, unsubdued.
*Two thousand years, and man is waiting still and yearning! Go to thy Father back, bright Herald of the day, And say "No dawn is come, but only night's returning: Thy boon, 0 God, is long, is long upon the way."
Any scheme of future reconstruction which leaves Satan out of account (I use the name " Satan " ; it is open to anyone who likes to regard it as just a figurative embodi- ment of the evil will) or which rates the extent of Satan's kingdom too low, inevitably comes to shipwreck on facts. The reason why the League of Nations failed to achieve what was hoped is, I think, that the extent of the evil will in the world was rated too low. The scheme thought of the great majority of nations as resolute for peaceful pro- cedure, and of a possible aggressor-nation as an isloated criminal who could be easily subdued by the united power of the rest. The scheme would not work when some great nations showed no will to co-operate, and several other great nations showed the will to aggress. Today, instead of the "collective security" afforded by the power of all the world united against a small aggressing minority, we have only the collective defence put up by three allied nations against an aggressor very nearly equal.
One reflection should, I think, prevent Christians being too discouraged at this failure of hopes. While the eager desire to build even now upon earth a Jerusalem from which the evil will is banished may perhaps revive with better success, when this present tribulation is overpast, its failure would completely accord with the original expec- tations of the Christian Church. When the early Christian looked round on the world ruled by the pagan power, he said, "The whole world lieth in the evil one." And he never supposed that any efforts of good men could eliminate the evil will from earth. On the contrary, he supposed that, as time went on, the evil will would grow worse and worse. The idea of man's building a rew Jerusalem now upon earth has only come up in quite recent days in the Christian Church. But the Church has always been sure that the world-process would end by God's establishing His kingdom over all spirits of men, somehow, somewhere. Meantime, we must strive to remedy any evils in the world which it is in our power to remedy, and, so far as the evil will continues unsubdued, we can at any rate, through all the reign of darkness, go on bearing witness to the Light.
One other consideration. In this struggle with a particu- lar embodiment of the evil will, in which we are now engaged, we have really good reason for hope. A great part of the German people is sound and reasonable in character, though that part is now held down and gagged. If we can set it free and draw it in, after Nazism has been broken, to collaborate with us in establishing a better European order, we shall have learnt by our mistake after 1918, when we treated Germany under the rather bewildered and not quite whole-hearted Republican Government in such a way that the evil will has once again come into ascendancy in Germany, in a form far more brutal and sinister than before.
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